The Longevity Experiment? (Suzanne Forster)

According to a new study from the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, it’s not that difficult to add an additional fourteen years to your life. And fourteen years, well, that’s not chopped liver. Just don’t eat any chopped liver, lol.

Actually, what I like about this seemingly simply four-pronged plan is that there’s only one thing you’re not allowed to do and that’s smoke cigarettes. Since I quit years ago, that leaves me just three prongs to worry about, and they really don’t sound all that difficult. All you have to do is exercise moderately, drink moderately (yes, they mean alcohol), and eat five servings of fruits and vegetables. Every day.

Here’s the link to the January 8th Yahoo! News article about the study: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080108/hl_nm/longevity_lifestyle_dc;_ylt=AnYLvRJwKO2a6YpcFpvwOB4DW7oF

Sounds like a cinch, huh? Especially the drinking? Uh, give it a try. First of all, I’ve discovered I don’t do anything every single day, except maybe breathe. Well, yes, there are a couple other bodily functions, but they fall into the too much information (TMI) category. From my experience, unless you’re a hyperactive rabbit with a wine cellar, it’s not that easy to drink, exercise, and eat a small mountain of produce every single day.

I first heard about the Cambridge study on Yahoo! News, and I’ve had trouble tracking down the specifics about how much drinking and exercising is actually necessary, but based on a separate study in the European Heart Journal, drinking moderately is one or two drinks a day. Other reports say moderate is one or two drinks a week, so there is some confusion. I suspect anything within that range is okay. The European Heart Journal study is clear on the drawbacks of heavy drinking. Apparently that, combined with a lack of physical activity brings about the highest risk of death of any of the groups studied, so all the benefits of alcohol are negated with anything more than moderate consumption.

I’m pretty much a lightweight by anyone’s standards. One drink and I’m ready for a nap. The health benefits of red wine have been widely reported for some time now, so I decided if I was going to drink anything, it would be that. However, timing my daily glass of wine was the problem. When I’m writing, I usually have my main meal in the late afternoon, and if I were to add wine, I’d be snoozing by the five o’clock news. On the other hand, if I were to start drinking in the afternoon, my books might get a lot more interesting.

Obviously, I still have to figure out how to schedule in all four prongs. It takes some time to consume five servings of anything and then exercise it off, but fourteen years is a pretty good incentive, so I’m working on it. And you just never know when the opportunity to imbibe may arise. This weekend, after finishing my new story proposal at two in the morning, I woke up the dh for a celebratory glass of champagne, after which I promptly nodded off. Good timing on that one.

When I first heard about the study, I was pretty optimistic about being able to make all four health changes. I was already ahead of the game by not smoking, and I love fruits and veggies, especially salad, which takes up a lot of space, so I figured I wouldn’t have too much trouble with five servings a day. An orange in the morning, some berries maybe, some kind of vegetable soup for lunch and a salad with supper. That seemed doable, but I knew the exercise was going to be a much bigger problem. I’d been to a knee surgeon the day before, and he’d nearly crippled me trying to figure out what was wrong my gimpy left knee. Any thought of exercise was out, at least for awhile. I could barely walk.

So, the first week of my longevity experiment was far from triumphant. I only made all four of the health changes one time. Pathetic, huh? Just once did I manage to eat, drink, and exercise as they recommended. And I doubt I would have done much better had my knee been in good shape. It’s just darn hard to chomp down that many vegetables every day. I couldn’t manage the drinking, either.

This week is going better. So far, I’ve made all the prongs two days in a row! My knees are not happy though, and they’re going to want the day off tomorrow, I can tell you. I’ve also decided to go with the lower end of the moderation scale on the drinking, something closer to one to two glasses a week rather than a day. I don’t need that many naps.

But it’s fun trying to figure out how to wedge all that healthiness into my day, and I have an all-new appreciation for the cleansing effects of large amounts of fiber in the diet. I wonder if the extra trips to the lieu count as moderate exercise? I wish! I also wish the study had mentioned dark chocolate. I’m pretty religious about my two squares a day. And since cocoa starts as a bean, does that fall in the vegetables category?

So, anybody else out there think an extra fourteen years is worth the effort? And if not, what do you do when the urge to get healthy strikes you? I’m already smiling as I imagine some of the answers.

Suz